


Take Another Breath

by Oscar_Wilde_Inspired



Category: Almost Human
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 01:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1286563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oscar_Wilde_Inspired/pseuds/Oscar_Wilde_Inspired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off a prompt from Tumblr user kaylachloe.</p>
<p>Writing prompt John goes and does something very stupid and basically goes in hiding for a couple of days and when he gets back he sees that leaving without telling dorian really messed dorian up and he has to find a way to make it up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Another Breath

**Author's Note:**

> I think I did a pretty good following this prompt. It's kind of preslash but a definite heading there quickly vibe.

Honestly it hadn’t been his fault. Well not his fault in the sense that he hadn’t meant for what happened to happen but now that’s it done it he can’t stay. He’s going to have to disappear for a few days, Captain Maldonado will understand. Or he hopes she will, he left her a holo-voicemail explaining. Hopefully she won’t send out a MX or two to hunt him down and bring him back. He can’t face the bullpen right now, can’t face the smirking faces from the other cops. Because he fucked up again, damaged psychotic John Kennex screwing up once again because he’s incapable of functioning like a rational human being. John doesn’t think about Dorian, the android can handle being without him for a few days, will probably be thankful for the reprieve. 

So instead of going and facing the slew of insults and sneers he’s bound to receive he takes off. He leaves his phone at home, switches off every tracker, Dorian’s way of keeping tabs on him; he’s found over the last few months and disappears. 

At first it’s nice, the calm, the silence. It’s refreshing from the constant hustle and bustle of the city and demands of the job. The peace last for all of four hours before he’s climbing the walls. He wasn’t lying before when he told Dorian he’d probably end up shooting himself if he lived in an isolated cabin. Not from boredom but because as soon as the quiet settles over him every single bad thing that he’s ever done slams into him. Greif and guilt hits him like a tsunami slamming into land, like a load of bricks falling onto an unsuspecting passerby. 

It takes him a week before he can’t stomach it anymore, it had taken three days for the booze to run out, and he begrudgingly makes his way back to his house, to civilization, and Dorian. 

He checks in with the Captain telling her he’s back and he’ll come to work the next day. She’s angry, he doesn’t blame her, but she ends the call with she’s glad he’s back and that if he does something like this again she’ll handcuff him to his desk and bury him in paperwork made out of actual paper. He doesn’t tell her that he actually kind of missed her as well. She lets him get away with a lot but she was never afraid to call him out on his bullshit and tell him to snap out of whatever funk he had managed to throw himself in to. He kind of missed that during his brief furlough. 

The next morning he stops by Rudy’s to collect Dorian but instead he’s assaulted by the weedy geek throwing himself at John. Nearly choking him with the hug Rudy almost cries when he says he’s glad John’s back. Clearing his throat and stepping back when John growled at him to let go Rudy straightened his coat. 

“Sorry man” his voice is scratchy and he swiped at his eyes twice as he turned away. “When we couldn’t find your body we all kind of assumed the worse until the Captain told us you were just on vacation for a while.”

“Sorry” John said gruffly, he was trying not to let the fact that Rudy might’ve cried over him affect him. He was fine; the Captain had told everyone he was fine so there was no reason to get so upset over someone actually missing him.

“Yeah no, no problem man. Um…Dorian’s not here; he’s already at the station.” Rudy said as he walked over to his work bench to put away whatever newest piece of robotic technology he had been working on. 

“He’s not?” That was odd Dorian always waited for John to come pick him up, no matter how late John might’ve been. Dorian never left without him.

“No” he kept his head bent down as he talked. He was trying to hide whatever emotion was on his face at the moment, Rudy was an open book at all times. Why was he trying to hide now? “He’s been taking the light rail to work because you know you haven’t…no one knew when you were coming back.”

“Oh” was all John could muster. It made sense. Dorian wouldn’t stop going to work just because John was gone. “Thanks Rudy.” Rudy sent him a faint no problem as John left. 

 

The drive to work was much quieter than usual. It took him all of five minutes to figure out he was used to Dorian’s bickering and sarcastic commentary on John’s life filling the silence. It unsettled him a bit that he found himself missing it. 

 

The bullpen was a chaotic and noisy as always but as soon as he walked in a hush fell over. Straightening his shoulders and pasting the best irritated look on his face as he could conjure up he strolled unconcerned through the room. Noise returned slowly than all at once, he chose to ignore the amount of times he heard his name. It wasn’t the first time he was subject to the main scope of gossip that swept like a disease through this place and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. 

Detective Stahl slid in view in front of him, for the first time morning John could feel an actual smile tug at his lips.

“Good to see you’re not bleeding out in a ditch somewhere” she quipped with an easy smile, the corner of her eyes and the clenched fist spoke a different story though. 

“Takes a lot more than an explosion to get rid of me,” John said back grateful that she didn’t come out right and place all the blame on him.

With the smile still on her face she clapped him on the shoulder “I don’t know why you complain so much at about Dorian he’s been a perfect partner over the last week.” So it had been Stahl that got saddled with Dorian. John was honestly a bit relieved, out of everyone he was glad Dorian got assigned to Stahl, she was the least likely to treat him like he was some disposable MX.

“That’s because he actually likes you. I’m certain he changed his programming to specifically make my life a living hell.” 

Stahl shook her head and dropped her hand “I don’t think that’s the reason.” She turned to leave but stopped “I am glad though, that you’re back. You had all of us really worried for a while there.”

“Yeah,” John offered lamely as Stahl gave him a final smile before disappearing into the crowd.

When he got to his desk it was empty, no sign of Dorian or half finished reports the android usually left scattered around for John to finish. 

It took an hour and a long angry conversation that turned oddly sweet with the Captain before he managed to find Dorian. The android had sequestered himself down in Rudy’s lab. The thin nonstop talking tech was nowhere to be found when John walked into the lab. Dorian however was sitting at the bank of computers a video file playing on loop across the span of them.

“Hey Dorian” was the only thing John could call up to say. The android didn’t say anything, didn’t even acknowledge John’s presence. Biting back the irritation at the dismissal John stopped at Dorian’s side. The footage of the incident that sent John running was playing across the screens. He watched silently beside Dorian as a tiny grainy version of himself ran forward his arms waving about as he screamed for people to get out of the building. Dorian was nowhere in sight because John had told him to stay outside and wait for the bomb squad. Dorian had protested and tried to follow John inside but when an injured civilian had fallen to the ground John had taken off while Dorian was caring for them. 

John watched silently as the suspects they had been after ran out with the crowd of people while John made an idiot of himself trying to find them. The whole thing had been one massive mistake after the other on his part. He had done the complete opposite of what Dorian had suggested just because John was feeling slightly more like an asshole that day. It had all accumulated to the bomb going off and taking out three MXs, two employees and narrowly avoiding John. 

“It never ceases to amaze me that despite your above average IQ how completely and utterly stupid you can be.” Dorian finally said once the footage had started to loop back on itself. 

“Me too” John agreed. 

Dorian slowly turned his body towards John but kept his face pointed away. “I spent almost three hours scouring the rubble for any sign of you only to find out that you went through the back door without bothering to notify anyone.” As he spoke John caught the slight inflections in Dorian’s voice that made John believe, not for the first time, that there was so much more to Dorian than complex programming. The synthetic soul he had seemed more human, more lifelike, than John’s own damaged and bruised one. 

“I’m sorry” John said surprising himself at how true it was. He hadn’t meant to scare Dorian, that was what the android was, he was scared every part of him radiated it. 

Finally Dorian turned his head achingly slowly towards John, his cheek lit up as he took in John’s vitals, his heart beat, breathing, perspiration. “I’m not lying,” John offered softly “I really am sorry.” 

“I believe you” Dorian said back, the blue light continued to dance across his face. “I’m taking in your vitals to assure that you are alive, that my programming didn’t crash and I’m seeing a hallucination.” 

A sharp pain just below his ribs hit John with such force that he almost had to sit down. He had felt pain similar to this once, lying bloody and missing a limb on the ground as Anna stood over him. “What can I do to prove it to you, to make it up to you?”

“Nothing” Dorian said abruptly as he stood up the feed to the computers shut off. “Let’s go we’re already very late for your shift. I’m sure coming back from the dead isn’t a good enough excuse for Captain Maldonado when you’re an hour and half late for your shift.” 

“Hey Dorian…” John began but stopped as Dorian simply walked out of the room. “Great” John said to himself. 

The rest of the day was awkward and stilted in a way that it had never been before not even the first day as partners had been this bad. No matter what John did 

Dorian said as few words as possible. He didn’t bicker at John for his taste in music, didn’t make a quip about John’s intelligence even when John gave him ample opportunity. There was nothing and by the end of the day John was on edge and ready to punch something. 

The biggest surprise of the day came as Detective Paul stopped to hover awkwardly by John’s desk. Looking up from a case file John frowned at the shorter man. He had managed to avoid Detective Paul all day and after everything he didn’t think he could handle the other man’s open dislike of him. 

“What?” John huffed out setting the file down. He wasn’t getting anything done anyways. All he really was doing was staring at it in attempt to pretend he was busy. 

Dorian had disappeared as soon as they walked back through the precinct doors leaving John alone to face the sharks. 

Detective Paul looked wholly uncomfortable shifting from foot to foot. “You’re a dumbass,” he managed finally.

“Thanks,” John smirked but there was nothing really behind it. All the sudden he felt so very tired, the entirety of the day slammed into him all at once.

“I mean it” Detective Paul pressed “letting us all to think you were dead. That was a dumbass move, we were all…” there was a long pause as he looked around the room like he was afraid someone would try to shoot him for what he was going to say. “We were all worried about you.” It all come out in a rush and for a long moment John thought he had heard wrong. “Dorian especially. I thought him with a low charge was bad but thinking you were somewhere unknown injured or dead was by far the worst thing to deal with.” Clearing his throat roughly like saying this was taking a huge toll him, for all John knew it probably was. The detective usually didn’t express that much emotion unless it was anger or smugness. “So ugh don’t do that again because Dorian was annoying as hell.”

“Yeah, sorry I…ugh” John stumbled over the words not really what was appropriate to say to a man who he thought hated him until right now. Nodding once, twice, Detective Paul walked away. 

Abandoning the reports John went to go find Dorian. 

 

Not giving the android time to step back John wrapped his arms around him. 

“Um John what are you doing?” Dorian asked his mouth pressed against John’s neck.

“I’m giving you a hug what does it look like?” 

“For all I know you could be attempting to fry my programming by doing something that is completely out of character for you.” Dorian said in a way that was monotone yet laced with unyielding sarcasm.

“If this all it takes to short circuit you I would’ve done it a long time ago.” Dorian was silent but one arm slowly rose up and clasped John’s back. The other arm followed shortly. “I am really sorry, next time I disappear because I’m embarrassed I’ll make sure to notify you first.”

Dorian let out a small huff of amusement “I doubt you’ll actually do so but I appreciate the sentiment behind the statement.” 

Rolling his eyes John gave Dorian one last tight squeeze before pulling back “Maybe I shouldn’t though, from what Detective Paul told me you were pretty unbearable while I was gone. Maybe I should do this more often so you can slowly drive that man insane.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Dorian looked affronted “I was the epitome of composure. I barely noticed you were gone.” 

Laughing John clapped Dorian on the shoulder “I’m sure you were buddy.”

There were turning to leave with Dorian pulled him back in for another hug “I installed a tracker on you somewhere.” Releasing him Dorian grinned at him before turning to leave. 

“Dorian” John patted his arms and chest down. “Dorian wait,” running a hand over the back of his neck he couldn’t find any sign of tracker “Dorian where is it? Dorian tell me where it’s at!”

The only answer he got back was the sound of Dorian’s laugh ringing through the hall.


End file.
